Emerson College has enabled Zoom AI Companion Meeting Summaries to help meeting hosts automatically generate written recaps of Zoom meetings. This feature is now available to all Emerson Zoom users with privacy-focused defaults.
This article explains how the feature works at Emerson and what settings are in place.
For full instructions on how to use Zoom AI Companion features, please refer to Zoom's official documentation:
If you're new to Zoom generally, you may also find it helpful to review our support guide Zoom: Getting Started.
What is AI Companion Meeting Summary?
Zoom’s AI Companion Meeting Summary uses AI models to create a written summary of your meeting. These summaries are generated based on the meeting’s audio transcript and aim to provide a high-level recap of topics discussed, key points, and action items.
Unlike a recording or full transcript, the Meeting Summary is intended as a concise reference after meetings conclude.
How Meeting Summaries Work at Emerson
At Emerson, Meeting Summaries are available to all hosts but are optional. The host can choose whether to enable AI Companion at the start of a meeting. If enabled, the AI will generate a summary even if the meeting was not recorded.
Summaries are delivered after the meeting to the host via Zoom’s web portal, where they can be shared with participants if desired.
Emerson's Default Settings
In configuring this feature, Emerson IT has made intentional choices to balance functionality with privacy and governance:
-
Enabled: Meeting Summaries
The core meeting summary feature is available to all users. Hosts decide when to enable it. -
Not Enabled: Live AI Companion Questions
Zoom offers an additional AI feature allowing participants to ask real-time questions during meetings. This feature is currently disabled because it generates live AI responses that may surface incomplete or inaccurate information without host review. Disabling it helps ensure that AI-generated summaries remain under host control and fully reviewable before sharing. -
Not Enabled: Screen Share OCR and Chat Parsing
The AI can optionally analyze shared screen content and chat messages. Emerson has disabled these options to ensure that summaries are generated solely from the meeting’s spoken content, minimizing the risk of capturing unintended private or sensitive information. -
Retention: 30 Days
Meeting summaries are automatically deleted after 30 days. Hosts may delete summaries sooner if desired. After deletion (either manual or automatic), summaries cannot be recovered. -
Reminders to Enable
Hosts will see a prompt reminding them to enable AI Companion at the start of meetings, but it will never activate without the host’s consent.
Adjusting Personal Settings
Individual users can adjust some personal preferences directly in Zoom:
Visit https://emerson.zoom.us and sign in with your Emerson credentials.
Navigate to Settings > AI Companion.
-
From here, you can:
Turn off AI Companion.
Enable or disable reminders to turn on AI Companion when you host a meeting.
Choose whether summaries are automatically shared and who can receive them.
Control email notifications when summaries are shared.
Select your preferred Meeting Summary Template to customize how your summaries are formatted.
How Zoom Uses Meeting Data
Zoom’s AI Companion Meeting Summaries are covered by Zoom’s Terms of Service and Data Processing Addendum (DPA), which apply to education accounts like Emerson's.
Under these agreements, Zoom processes meeting data on Emerson’s behalf and does not use meeting content (such as audio, video, or summaries) to train its AI models. Zoom may use limited technical and operational data (such as diagnostic information, support case information, etc.) to maintain and improve its services, but meeting discussions are not used to develop or refine AI capabilities.
Emerson Privacy and Security Policies
Use of AI Companion and Meeting Summaries remains subject to Emerson’s broader data governance and acceptable use policies. Hosts and participants are responsible for ensuring that use of this feature complies with College policies, including:
As always, care should be taken when meetings involve sensitive data. Meeting Summaries may not be appropriate in all circumstances. Please consult a Data Custodian as necessary for any questions.